Jake528

Hey everyone wanted to run something by y’all. Im currently at 78k miles and recently experiencing an increasingly vague feel in steering, and have a loud clunk at low speeds when close to full lock, accompanied by a squeak over bumps.

I found the driver’s side thrust arm ball joint to have a separation in the rubber grommet - go figure. I also took the opportunity to liberally apply force with a pair of channel locks to various control arms while under and found the entire thrust arm to twist a fair amount under torque. The passenger side appears to be in much better shape. Would I be a complete lunatic to propose I just change the thrust arm on the driver’s side? I know alignment is a bit of a beast in these and I wouldn’t want to have any issues.

Additionally, the outer tie rod on my driver’s side twisted in my hands without much force...I’m thinking this is a red flag and I may need to replace them as well? I guess a 4100lb 14 year old sedan isn’t very kind to rubber! Ha.

Richardmozis

Replace the thrust arms in pairs and get an alignment done right after, that should fix the clunk. The squeaking is likely from the lower ball joints, so replace those in pairs as well.

Munchy

iTrader: (1)

Probably better to replace in pairs since you'll have to do it anyways and wouldn't want to pay for another alignment.

StarvingArtist

Do the upper ball joints too. They are only about $50 bucks each, and can be changed in about 10 minutes. Mine start to go bad about every 50k.

BC928

Front suspension bushings, toe rods, rack mounts and ball joints are wear items. With 78k they are all in some way worn or gone.

Jake528

Thanks for the input thus far, guys. I am considering buying each bushing and control arm separately and pressing them all to save some dough. I’m thinking it probably won’t be worth it but we will see.

StarvingArtist

Ball joints on the thrust arms are built in. FWIW.

Jake528

I had a sinking feeling about that. Whelp, I guess I’ll be ordering the arms if that’s the case.